First, you have the lure. Generally, the lure you’d use
would depend on what you were hoping to catch – certain fish respond better to
certain bait. But the Internet is so massive it has no need to limit itself –
there are YouTube clips of idiots falling off high places, endless discussions
about esoteric points in obscure sci-fi movies, make-up tutorials, visual
homages to Edward Cullen’s supposed magnificence, and cat videos. If you have an
interest, someone online has put up a page going into way more detail about it
than you ever imagined possible.
Once they have you drawn in, they start to disorient you.
Sometimes the initial site can do this – message boards are both great for long
conversations that will suck up hours without you realizing it – but the real
power is in the links. Like a little trail of electronic breadcrumbs, they lead
you deeper and deeper into the maze of websites full of distracting information
and shiny pictures. Hours later, you have no memory of what you had initially
meant to do or what is going on in the world outside of the computer screen.
Worse, you don’t want to leave the magic computer screen, because it’s
constantly rewarding you with some new factoid or bright spangly every few
clicks. You’re happy in the trap, and wouldn’t leave if you could.
The question is, who’s trapping us? The simple answer is
corporations, but your average business executive just isn’t that clever. My
vote is our future alien overlords.
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